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Let the parties begin
DENVER — With thousands of journalists descending here for the Democratic National Convention, the city of Denver wants to use that opportunity to tell the world what a cool place the Mile High City is.
And there’s nothing like a little beer to lubricate the sales pitch.
Saturday evening, convention sponsors hosted a “Celebration with Altitude” at Elitch Gardens, a miniaturized version of Kings Island located near downtown next to the Pepsi Center where most of the convention activities will take place.
It was the big kickoff of a week filled with parties attracting rock stars, delegates, lobbyists and the media. The major sponsors were The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News with Coors supplying what appeared to be at least several acre feet of malted beverage.
Big media splashes like this are typical for conventions, Super Bowls and other high-profile events. They give sponsoring communities a chance to show off.
“With over 15,000 members of the media covering the convention, there has never been a larger spotlight on our city, said Harry Whipple, president of the Denver Newspaper Agency, which publishes the Post and the Rocky, when the party was announced. “We want to make sure that spotlight shines bright and captures all the vitality that Denver has to offer.”
Elitch Gardens was closed to the public for the event, and members of the media were bused in from around the Denver area to the invitation-only party, which drew about 9,000 ticketed attendees.
Party-goers jammed the lines for thrill rides with terrifying names like the Tower of Doom, Mind Eraser and Boomerang. Then there was this circular cage on bungee cords that flung screaming partiers halfway to Pike’s Peak (or so it seemed) then back down, up and down, the sight of which gave me vertigo.
“Want to try it?” asked a friend.
“There’s not enough Coors in the world.”
Big attraction: A dude in a Captain Morgan getup, parading about the park surrounded by his Captain Morgan girls, handing out tee shirts and pins touting “Captain for President: Putting the party back in politics.”
The wife and I scored pins, but the shirts were long gone. I did, however, put a football through a swinging donut hole to win a gigantic stuffed Batman, only to discover when I got back to our hotel, a good half-hour from downtown, that his head is falling off.
My guess is more than a few people awoke today feeling like their heads are falling off, too.
Jeff Bruce is the journalist in residence at Wright State University. He can be reached at jeff@jeffbruce.net. For more news about the Democratic National Convention, point your browser to daytondailynews.com/politics.
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